Interesting. Kind of what I thought.......I don't hear a lot of surfers saying they lean towards not using the kite.

I did not mean to imply in my original post that there's any right or wrong way to do it in the waves. I'm thinking that guys that have surfed in the past will have an initial advantage in the waves due to wave knowledge, etc, but I think it's pretty obvious that the learning curve for waves is much shorter for somebody with a kite even if they have zero surfing experience......surfing if you're in the wrong position, you're done. Kiting you can boost out of bad positions, and you get zillions of more waves.

I'm not trying to get anybody new excited about going out in the waves. Please remember, there are sharks and horrible horrible other things, currents etc. I'm joking but I'm serious.

But......

My own thing is the joy of carving. You don't even need a wave to carve when you've got a kite to supply the power. So much fun, and the wave is a multiplier. Since I'm personally not into doing the handlepass/wakeboard style stuff, I really don't do much unhooked. And since I'm kind of a wimp about putting my kite down in the waves, I try to avoid being unhooked in the waves. One more thing to go wrong......

That being said, as Ramsey points out, unhooked forces you to minimize the use of the power of the kite in many ways. And I suppose that you could lean towards Ben Wilson's idea of trying to promote the "purity" of using just the wave as much as possible.

But from observation and extrapolating from my own experience, it looks like it's difficult to resist "the dark side" of the force of the kite. We all know some guys that surf.....maybe even they windsurf, too.......that resist the idea of taking up kiting, SUPing or whatever because they don't want to be untrue to their first love and id of surfing.

This debate is kind of amusing me... There is already the same debate in the surfing community to know what's surfing is all about? And I am not even talking about the sweepers Long board, short board, tow in, big wave... Me I don't have taboo... I own 6 directionals and I ride strapped super powered to attack waves, I ride super big waves to go down the face like I am snowboarding, I ride strapless underpowered to better feel and play with the power of the wave, unhooked when the waves are right to get a better cut back and I ride sometimes with very small fins to rely more on the rails and the board... It's all surfing to me. All fun!!!It all depends on the wind and wave conditions, but more importantly on how I feel that day...Stop asking you if what you do is surfing or not! Go out there and enjoy playing with waves...But please not on a twin tip )))

Quality discussion....go right/wrong way to ride the energy of the ocean....kite/arms/paddle....whatever.....find a way to do it and have fun....please, don't poach my line....unless I've poached yours...

Reminds me of a great song: "We can share what we've got of yours because were done sharing all of mine".

.....whatever you do, don't forget how lucky we are to have access to this amazing energy source.....

Ok, so don't get me wrong, I don't care too much about semantics, but for the sake of conversation...

To me, kiteboarding pretty much covers all aspects of the sport. Anything board pulled on the water by a kite. Kitesurfing, on the other hand, implies not just riding a board, even a surfboard, on the water, but rather the act of surfing while using a kite for some kind of assistance. To surf means using the energy of a wave to slide across the water. So of me, the ultimate expression of kitesurfing is one where the waves energy is a significant component of the energy being ridden. The greater the ratio of wave energy to wind energy, the more pure is is in my mind.

I LOVE to line up on a wave at the coast and rip into it fully powered on a surfboard and then hit it again...and again... But to me that isn't kitesurfing. It's kiteboarding in the waves, on a surfboard. It's also way easier than actually surfing the wave with a kite. To actually surf the wave while kiting is more difficult than kiteboarding or surfing alone. It's a combination of both skill sets in an extremely fluid environment that requires both wind and wave knowledge and a significant amount of skill. I aspire to that level of riding, but have a long way to go.

That said, and all theoretical discussion aside, I just love to kite. On anything, in anything. And for gods sake, could we just get a couple of kiteable days to get us through the winter!!!!